What's new in October 2003

Hi guys!

Well here I am (as a coach) at the World Youth Championships in Greece doing some intrepid Dragon reporting. I can tell you that there have been a fair few relevant encounters here and with specific relevance to the England squad you will find some interesting annotations.

Still within the realms of 9 Bc4, if White wants to avoid the Chinese variation then 10 h4 gets to the point:

Black can of course return to the other main lines (effectively having side-stepped that frustrating Kb1 and g4 system; gee I need a real name for that!).

However, Szelag-Papa; sees Black dabbling in an early pawn sac. Intriguing stuff.

Effectively the Yugoslav Attack, although with an early Bb3:

the game Moreno Carnero-Korneev; investigates some of the thrills and spills in an early ...b5 and ...a5 system. I quite like that for Black though not necessarily the way it was played here.

Away from the normal Dragon, the odd encounter

Roelli-Gilbert; appears difficult to categorise. Officially classified by ChessBase as a 'Semi-Accelerated Dragon', it looks to me more of a mix and match. Either way not recommended for White!

Finally, Borisek-Tronenkovs; is a standard Accelerated Dragon where Black is ruthlessly punished for a spot of pawn grabbing:

I'm slightly surprised that Black didn't know that White's a-pawn was more than a little poisoned here, but he does now!

Well that's it guys (not a bad update if I say so myself!). When I return I will see what's going on in the forum and you can expect me back with more thrills and spills in about 3 weeks. That's me done. By for now,